


falling in love and other occupational hazards

by jdphoenix



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Pre-Movie(s), Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 23:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8642713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Rick isn't her therapist, but he's all she's got.





	

Rick’s been gone for twenty minutes and, far as he can see, nothing’s changed on the security feed. The sheets on the bed are a little more twisted, but the doc’s sleeping same as she was when he left. 

He takes another bracing sip of the coffee he ran down to the hotel lobby for. The metallic tang does more to keep him awake than the caffeine does, and he needs that. Needs the drive and the focus. He needs just about anything that’ll keep his eyes glued to the tiny screen he’s got propped on his dresser because there isn’t one bit of him that wants to look at it.

He hates this. The rest of the job is okay but the nights are hell. When she sleeps, all he can think about are those first few days.

When he found her in Porto Verde, he had no idea she was the target. Everything they’d heard about this thing pointed to something evil and _big_ , not some terrified woman begging for help. He thought she was a _victim_ , the sole survivor of a brutal massacre.

By the time he got her out of there, one of the tech teams had finally gotten access to satellite and security footage. When the medevac showed up, she got a heavy dose of sedatives, and he got new orders. He got to stand by and watch while they hooked her up to machines, shoved a tube down her throat, talked over her like she wasn’t even a goddamn human being.

It was four days before Waller decided she wanted a face-to-face. Four days Rick spent standing guard over what was practically a corpse.

He still can’t shake it.

On the tablet screen in front of him, the doc sits up. Her eyes fly to every brightly lit corner of the room, and her hands shake before she fists them in the sheets. He doesn’t see that though, he’s already up and at the door connecting their rooms.

He taps twice, calls a gentle, “Hey.”

There’s a beat and then, “Come in.”

First thing he thinks is she looks small, same as she did when he pulled her out of that bathtub. Her legs twist, pushing her back into the headboard, and she’s still hunting for shadows to jump at.

“You okay?” he asks. Which is just the most dumbass question ever, but he’s already said it so whatever.

“Yes,” she says. A dumbass answer to match his question. Perfect.

She wraps her fingers around her own pale shoulders, and it hits him how _cold_ it is in here. He spares the thermostat a glance; it’s set to 72 but says the room’s an icy 45. Fuck.

“Here.” He pulls off the sweatshirt he tugged on earlier - like he thought he was actually gonna sleep tonight - and tosses it to her. She’s got good reflexes, catches it out of the air without any trouble. So whatever freaked her out, she’s not so lost in it that she doesn’t notice what’s going on around her. That’s good.

She tries to argue that she doesn’t need it, he should keep it, and somehow that conversation ends with him sitting on the edge of her bed. She’s wearing the sweatshirt though, so that’s something.

The the carpet under his feet is littered with papers. Photos and diagrams, scans of old books, reports from the team that went into that cave. She’s being kept busy while the higher-ups try to figure out what to do with her.

“You don’t have to be scared of Waller,” he says. He picks up a drawing of the temple. All the plants and shit are cut away, the way it would’ve looked back when it was first built. It’s not a picture, she drew this herself. “She’s just trying to keep you in line, that’s all. Once she knows you’re not a threat-”

She laughs. It’s a terrible sound, sad and pained, like her throat doesn’t quite remember how it’s supposed to move around the noise. “I’m not afraid of Waller.”

He knows two star generals who will cross the street to avoid Waller, but when this shivering, shaking woman says she’s not afraid of her, Rick believes it.

She takes the drawing from him. “I was trying to sketch Notre Dame, just for something else to think about for a while.” She taps a finger to the side of her head and smiles tightly. “But she wanted something else.”

“You can communicate with her?” She didn’t say so during the endless rounds of questioning Waller put her through, but then she hadn’t had much time. She went from possessed to sedated to that nine-by-nine room, when would she have had the chance to figure out how any of this works?

“No. Not exactly.” She frowns, struggling with how to say what she means.

He moves closer, rests his hand on a bulge in the sheets that turns out to be her ankle. “Could you? When you were…?” He’s not sure how to say it without sounding like a complete ass.

She nods, eyes going far away. He knows that look, happens to civilians and soldiers alike when they get pushed too far, see too much. “Not all of it. I remember … the struggle. She was weak and nothing was the same. She was lost.”

Twenty-six days. That’s how long between the doc breaking off from her guide and the start of the massacre in Porto Verde. Nearly four weeks where nobody - not the local authorities, not the teams that combed over the area after, not even June herself - knows what happened to her.

She shakes herself. “But mostly I felt like I was the one in that totem. There was nothing but dark and loneliness and fear.” She blinks, seems to realize she’s got an audience for all this. “Sorry. I’m sorry. You’re not my therapist. You can go back to bed, I’ll be fine.”

She’s right, he’s not her therapist. She needs one - bad - but Waller hasn’t ordered one, so Rick’s about as good as it’s gonna get.

“You’re full of shit,” he says.

She blinks at him, all wide-eyed and helpless, just like in Brazil. He looks away.

“When I first saw you,” he says slowly, “I thought you were a survivor. And I was right.” He may’ve had the circumstances wrong, but that he got right. “You’ve been through hell - literally, by all accounts. So believe me, as a guy who’s seen a lot of hell, you ain’t ever gonna be fine. There’s no _fine_ after that. There’s living and more living until, hopefully, one day you realize you’ve gone a whole hour without thinking about it. Then a day. Then, if you’re really damn lucky, whole days strung together.”

He resists the urge to rub his arms. It’s warmer than when he came in, but it’s still fucking cold in here.

Her foot moves against his hip. If he was any less well-trained, he might jump out of his skin, but he manages to stay put as she inches closer.

“So you’re saying, even if we figure out a way to get her out of me, I’ll never be free of her.”

Well he didn’t mean to sound that dire about it, but yeah.

He’s also pretty sure they’re never getting the witch out of her. Not if Waller’s got any say. He doesn’t know yet what she’s planning for the doc, but it’s definitely not saving her.

Her hand touches his knee and he wraps his fingers around hers before he thinks better of it. He meets her eyes and thinks, _fuck_. Because this is bad.

He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows it’s wrong. Like she said, he’s not her therapist, he’s her security detail. He’s not supposed to be sitting up with her at night, comforting her after nightmares. He’s not supposed to give a shit that Waller’s got plans to use whatever’s inside her. He’s just supposed to do his damn job.

He stands, moves away. “I should go. Let you get some sleep. ‘Nother big day tomorrow.”

If she thinks anything of his change in attitude, she doesn’t show it. Instead, her hands move to the bottom of his sweatshirt. “Don’t forget this.”

“ _No_.” He may not know what this is, but he knows if he watches her take that off, the badness level is gonna go up another three notches. At _least_. “It looks better on you.” He bites his tongue. That’s another notch right there, but it just came out.

She fingers the T at the end of the “West Point” stamped across her chest, and he bolts out of there before she can say anything.

He slams the tablet face-down on the dresser, paces the room a couple times. Then he gets his head on straight enough to remember what she said about the witch having some influence over her even now and picks the damn thing back up again. He sits back down in the uncomfortable chair, takes another sip of the now-tepid coffee. It’s even worse than before.

He watches her stare at the door between them until her eyes grow too heavy and she nods off. After that and all the way 'til morning, it’s just him, his shitty coffee, and the warmth she left in his hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Part of Rick and June's conversation was blatantly inspired by [this page](https://66.media.tumblr.com/a5e9f66a8d3df7abce66be36e71f25dd/tumblr_ofwxampx1q1uzj0ezo1_1280.jpg) from the comics.


End file.
